


asphodel

by sunflower_8



Series: kaimaki week 2020!! [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sad, Terminal Illnesses, Who even knows, idk - Freeform, maybe a vent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_8/pseuds/sunflower_8
Summary: even if he is dying, she would always be the one he tries to save. she resents him for that, and he resents himself for leaving her.because, who will watch her plant flowers? who will sit for hours as she cultivates the earth, eyes like demeter but hades in one, so she is persephone, creating life from a broken earth, and who will let her take pomegranate seeds? who will love her even then?(or, there's a garden of dying flowers)
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito
Series: kaimaki week 2020!! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730125
Comments: 11
Kudos: 15





	asphodel

in the aftermath, he finds himself beneath the stars.

he can’t survive in the streets of a living city or in his bedroom of the house (filled with fourteen people, one banished, one gone forever), but there’s no use trying to attain the magnificence of being beside the stars. so instead, he leaves the front door ajar, just enough to signal his absence and fill the house with fresh air, and he comes to the garden.

in the garden, he always sees her.

she doesn’t wait for him to leave the house, but her fingers gently beckon him as she cares for the plants with furrowed eyebrows and gentle eyes. her hands are covered in dirt, gloveless, and she always has some smeared on her cheek. 

he kisses it away. she blushes. 

they don’t talk about it after. it’s a familiar routine, something he finds comfort in when his life is wavering. he can’t even keep up with the ordinary routine, where he trains with the people he calls sidekicks to pretend he is elevated, pretend he is a hero. his sicknesses-- the ones he believed couldn’t kill him, couldn’t hurt him again-- have returned. he knows that in a few months, he’ll be gone.

it’s terrifying, the thought that he may join the ashes on the hill where her flowers grow.

he sets the thoughts aside and continues walking to her, leaving the front door ajar again. then, he stills. there’s a different feeling lingering in the air though, even if the familiar sound of cicadas chirps in the distance. even if she is still there, her face is tilted downwards, the strand of hair that usually curls around her hair misplaced. and maybe he can’t read a situation like a novel but he can see the shift of gravity, the pain in a usually at-peace place. he knows the sight of sadness, knows the way it can be barely sheathed when it’s potent, the way it can consume a person. 

maybe he shouldn’t have told her he was dying,

but she is intelligent, brave, and beautiful. she would have figured it out eventually, confronting him with words that are unafraid and a bridge away from reckless, eyes set with exhaustion and a tremor in her lip. she would have known and hated him for his silence, saying nothing even when he knew he would be gone. he made the right decision. 

he just hates that it hurts her so bad.

he approaches her with the caution of a beast trying to tame a man, his footsteps not graceful enough to stop the tremors in the earth but just barely sufficing as quiet, disarming. his confusion is apparent in the air, the intervals and space between them shifting as he looks over her. she adjusts her body, tilting it sideways, and revealing the sight.

he can’t help but breathe in, unsure of when he will exhale again.

her hand, pale in the moonlight, cups the petal of a wilting rose. her eyes are more melancholy than the starless sky, the natural crimson muted to a darker hue of violet. her face never turns to his, but he still hears her delicate whisper, ‘they’re dying.’

‘can’t you save them?’ he asks, foolishly, because this is not the way the world is. the flowers she planted so lovingly will not live to the next spring, even if it is a month away from their grasp. he wishes himself a sacrifice to revive the garden, but she would never forgive herself.

she sighs, her dusky cherry hair obscuring her face. her voice falls quieter than anything, more silent than silence itself, as she mutters, ‘i can’t save them. i can’t even save you.’

and there is nothing to say.

but he can’t bear the helplessness. 

he slowly reaches out a shaky hand to cup her cheek, and she watches as he is the one to cry, tears like shooting stars fall from eyes of purple stardust, and despite his desire, he doesn’t believes the fairytales where tears revive, because they’re just a symbol of his weakness and the fact that he could never bring her back to life.

even if he is dying, she would always be the one he tries to save. she resents him for that, and he resents himself for leaving her.

because, who will watch her plant flowers? who will sit for hours as she cultivates the earth, eyes like demeter but hades in one, so she is persephone, creating life from a broken earth, and who will let her take pomegranate seeds? who will love her even then?

‘kaito,’ she murmurs as more tears fall. she opens her mouth as if she wants to add more, but she closes it. her lips are cracked, and he wonders if a kiss can fix anything.

with his blurry eyes, she looks like a ghost. and he was always terrified of those, but in the deathly still night, he finds that he isn’t afraid of her. she reminds him of nightshade and holly, what he needs to fear but never could. he’s not sure he fears many things anymore.

will a garden look the same even with ghosts?

he covers her hand and moves it away from the flower. she uses it to press against his cheek and brush away the tears, her eyes vacant and far away. he wonders if she views him as a martyr. he wonders if that’s what he wants. he wonders a lot of things. 

“i love you,” she tells him, and he can’t understand how amidst the asphodel meadows under their fingertips, she still speaks like she’s elysian, like they still have time in the way she ever-so quietly bids him goodbye. every goodnight is painful, every hello is worse, but nothing compares to how she promises that she loves him when he hasn’t had the time to phrase his thoughts yet. he thinks he loves her,

but he’ll never have enough time to be certain.

he hugs her instead, tight and suffocating, and he buries his face in her hair. she is lifted off the ground--  _ good _ , he thinks,  _ away from the earth _ \-- and months ago, he may have spun her around with an overjoyed smile, but instead he lets them sink into the dirt. he chokes out a sob and coughs twice as harder to make up for it,

and he wishes they still had time.

“the flowers are dying,” she repeats, her voice free from emotions. “i’ll plant new ones in spring.”

“without me?” he asks, but his heart beats with the words  _ thank you for trying, surviving _ .

she doesn’t reply for a long time. by the time rain has begun to fall and they sink harder into mud, she finally manages to whisper, “if i have to,” with a lilt in her voice saying that the matter is done. it’s the way it will be, and he knows he can’t save anything, so he cries a bit softer as they wait for the sun to part from the clouds for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> flowers / animals was the prompt.
> 
> so. haha. i didn't um. proofread this. i just wrote it, looked over a couple paragraphs and. i'm posting it now. so i'm sorry if it's terrible.
> 
> also i am so, so, so sorry for not doing the prompt yesterday. i was out of ideas and i was completely unable to write or really do anything lol so i'm sorry i missed a day i really didn't want to and i'm sorry to let you down, i'll be better. 
> 
> that's all. stay safe guys.


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